June 2017

Achieve Insights is a monthly briefing of newsworthy items from across

states related to ensuring that all students graduate from high school
prepared for college, careers, and life.

If you regularly read Achi eve Ins i ghts , please complete this 2-
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Achieve releases state data transparency

reports

Recently, Achieve released a set of state-by-state reports that

show how transparent states are in reporting data about how
well theyre preparing students for college and careers. In far too
many cases, data is either not reported at all or not reported in a
way that is useful to educators, parents, and policymakers.
Before we can improve high school graduates readiness for
success, educators, parents, and states need to have a
complete picture of how students are actually performing. This
new set of reports evaluates the transparency of every state's
public reporting on eight indicators of college and career
readiness. Once youve looked through the reports, test your
state college and career readiness transparency knowledge by
taking our quiz. The Ready Washington Coalition discusses
Washington States report and where their state can improve in
public reporting in this post on Medium.

Texas releases new student report cards for

the STAAR statewide assessment
The new student STAAR student report cards are designed to be
more easy to read and understand. These report cards share
statewide assessment results. Student assessment report cards
are another way that parents and guardians can learn more
about how well their student is progressing toward college and
career readiness. The new report cards include parent resources
such as grade-level texts, strategies, tips, and suggestions for
parent/teacher conferences. Having report cards that can be
easily accessed by parents, and show in detail their students
academic performance and progress on assessments, will
support parents ability to help their student in the classroom.

Colorado Department of Education provides

update on standards revision process
Colorado is undergoing the process of reviewing and revising its
academic standards across all content areas. In an update to
the Colorado State Board of Education, the Department of
Education highlighted that the process to revise standards will be
transparent, inclusive, and improvement oriented. These aspects
are important to ensure that the public can weigh in versions of
the standards are scheduled to be available to the public this fall
and that revisions are based on Colorados current college-
and career-ready standards and are an improvement over
current standards. Achieve publicly shares the reviews it has done
of states English language arts/literacy and mathematics
standards over the course of its 20-year history, evaluating how
well each reviewed states standards will help prepare students
for college and careers.

Five State Updates

Californias AB 830 passes the Assembly, and would
eliminate the states CAHSEE exit exam, previously
required for graduation. This requirement has been
suspended since the 2015-16 school year, and this
legislation would formally remove that requirement.
The CAHSEE exams were designed to be aligned to
Californias previous state standards.
Louisianas Senate passes HB 616, which if signed by
the governor would limit the amount of time students
spend taking standards-based assessments to two
percent of instructional minutes each year.
New Yorks Board of Regents votes to shorten the
number of days in the states assessment windows for
English and mathematics tests from three days in
each subject to two days for grades 3 through 8.
Regardless of how much time is spent on testing,
assessments should foremost be aligned to and of
sufficient quality to measure how well students meet
academic expectations.
Maryland Governor Hogan signs SB 452, requiring the
state and its districts to perform reviews of the
assessments it administers to students, including the
time required to administer them, the duplicativeness
of assessments, and timeliness of results.
Nevada Governor Sandoval signs SB 303, requiring
the states Department of Education to generate
and carry out a plan for auditing student
assessments. Achieve has developed an assessment
inventory tool for states and districts to use in
assessment auditing processes.

All students should graduate from high school

ready for college, careers, and citizenship.